Jeremy Clarkson: Just been for a walk round the farm and I'm a bit alarmed by how few butterflies there are.
Something is afoot.
Danny Wallace: Diesel-smelling Top Gear host who threatened climate protestors misses butterflies.
this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2024
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But have they? His insistence at this point is that he doesn't have to do anything, or change anything, science will "solve the issue". Nothing better than someone who thinks any mess they make can be cleaned up by someone else so why bother trying to make any changes that makes your life slightly less convenient?
https://metro.co.uk/2024/04/29/problem-jeremy-clarksons-global-warming-joke-20736068/
Uhh isn’t progressing to electric cars… science progressing to help solve the issue? What a strange train of thoughts.
I know someone who has a similar outlook (climate change is real but science will solve it, so we don't need to change anything). Basically anything science produces toward that end they will move the goalpost and say it's not worth pursuing because science will fix it.
It is essentially their way of making climate change denialism seem reasonable and open-minded. I think if somebody came up with a miracle device to magically reverse everything, they'd complain it's too costly at any price.
Yup. When/if we do find a way to dial back global warming, billionaires will be screaming for us to not use it because they've already found ways to make money off of people dying.
See: American healthcare system.
No. It isn't.
It's capitalism shifting their private transport scam from an energy source that they exploited the living crap out off to another that they haven't mismanaged into the ground yet.
What he thinks will happen is Tony Stark inventing a... Thing. And this Thing will make the climate better by doing... Stuff. And no one will have to change or do anything or even think about it because this Thing will do the Stuff for them.
Hello I'm "the Tony Stark" and I'm totally out of my element and overwhelmed
This is getting solved by the entire human species, not one dude
Would be cool if that were the case
No, its more like corporations moving to capitalize on peoples desire to affect change.
They help, but they don't solve the issue. They're a bandage for a gaping chest wound. It'll staunch the bleeding... a little, but it won't heal it.
Substitute religion out for technology and this is still meaningful
He's right about electric cars not solving anything but wrong about politics not solving it. Science has already provided the solutions like over a decade ago but no one is willing to implement it.
I'm really tired of this pervasive fantasy where people actually think we can get rid of all cars and bring public transport to the masses in the space of a year.
We live in a car centric society and changing that is going to take a decade at the minimum.
EVs are our best solutions currently, we don't have time to wait for trains or hydrogen. We should absolutely start trying to phase cars out completely but that doesn't negate the fact that saying "EVs don't help" is essentially being an oil barons mouthpiece.
And that’s way too optimistic. Given the life expectancy of modern autos, the “quick” option of EVs will be a couple decades or more.
Building car-centric towns and cities has taken most of a century of constant growth. Now those cities exist and we no longer have the growth so rebuilding them is a much bigger job. We’re talking many decades, likely a century or more. In the meantime we can’t afford to be stuck with ICE.
Although maybe you’re not from the US so the problem is not as severe. Here in Massachusetts we also have the advantage of so many towns and cities being built out before cars. We’re “behind” on being car-centric so hopefully can fix that trend more quickly
Best time to start was years ago, second best time to start is now. Maybe we can start by voting in favor of the next public transit initiative in our respective local elections.
Of course, but the point is that EVs are a useful step, even if transit is the goal and start now.
Also that it’s going to take quite a while. Yes, we need to plant that tree ASAP and we need to take really good care of it and we need to appreciate shade as we get it ….. but also realize it won’t be full grown until long after we’re gone.
(Hydrogen is very much not a solution. It takes way too much energy to make and it's very dangerous to store.)
Science is pushing electric cars for a reason. Clarkson's an idiot.
No it's capitalism and the car industry that wants to continue selling cars that are pushing for EVs.
Cars in general are bad for the environment and the people around them. EVs are a bit better than internal combustion, but it's not a miracle.
EVs still emit tons of rubber particles because of tire shedding, they are heavier and require more energy to move around, they still require vast amounts of paved parking and roads, and they can still crush pedestrians and animals.
If you have to have a car, it should be an EV if possible, but it would be better to reduce the amount of cars in cities and around us.
So we agree the man with 10 v8 engine cars should move to EVs or public transit rather than having 10 cars? Because he's saying fuck that.
He's not using all 10 at the same time every day for a multi-hours commute. In a way he's right. In his country, that means not cancelling HS2. It's not his personal fault. And him changing a car to EV won't change much, aside from putting one more car on the market.
Again, my point is, it's not science that is pushing EVs, it's capitalism. Buy an EV!1!!! Buy buy buy!11! ThEy ArE GoNnA SaVe ThE PlAnEt!
No need for policy changes. All we need to do collectively is ban plastic straws, drive EVs, recycle, and those that are not doing this will be blamed!
https://www.abc27.com/news/environment/keeping-old-cars-longer-can-help-the-environment-more-than-buying-new-electric-cars-study-finds/
https://www.cargurus.co.uk/Cars/articles/whats-greener-used-car-or-new-ev
https://mycarheaven.com/2023/07/keeping-your-old-petrol-car-may-be-better-than-buying-an-ev/
Myth. https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/mythbusting-world-evs-better-buy-new-or-keep-your-old-car
HS2 wasn't going to fix much. Shave 20 minutes off a multi-hour journey. There's already fast, frequent rail between London and the other major cities in HS2. It's just very expensive and HS2 wasn't going to fix that either. What would help is good rail between the North West and Yorkshire, where it's absurdly bad and has been for a long time.
Now if you could get rail or light rail out to my town or up the bus frequency and speed to match light rail, I'd gladly give up running my (second hand) electric car, but I need it to be so much cheaper, because the electric car costs me £4 a week to run if I don't use the light railway (plus £3 a day parking), and light rail costs me £6 a day if I park and ride. (I don't miss my petrol car at all. It cost me £20 a week to run, plus the parking, and it really was no fun to drive at all.)
If you have 10 cars and buy an 11th thats electric you're not really solving anything. The problem is overconsumption moreso than method of propulsion, the bulk of a car's lifetime emissions are a result of manufacturing rather than daily use.
Yeah someone clearly doesn't know history loll
As much as I like Top Gear, I'm embarrassed to share a name with this guy. Why does every public personality named Jeremy have to be a cunt? Maybe it's just British TV personalities.
mfw
To be fair, it's corporations doing the vast majority of the polluting.
Where I live, electric cars are essentially a net-zero because most of our electricity comes from coal and gas.
Does that absolve any individual from doing what they can? Absolutely not.
There are tons of people with that opinion that "the eggheads will just figure it out like they always do". IMO it's incorrect, but people on all ends of the political spectrum have that take.
IMO he's correct that individual action doesn't matter, but he's wrong that political action doesn't matter. It reminds me of the gun hobbyists in the US who are against gun control because they don't want their enjoyment of their hobby to be constrained by laws intended to get less people killed. There are solutions here where you can have your cake and eat it, but you just don't want to decouple the fantasy of your hobby from the reality of it.
There's nothing wrong with enjoying guns or cars as a hobby, but you should also acknowledge that their widespread presence is a net negative for society and regulating them would be a good thing for the world in the long run. It doesn't mean you can't have your toys.
Certainly nobody who drives their car to the office every day on a congested freeway is thinking about how fun it is to drive a V8. Less car dependency and more public transit would mean less cars on the road which would make driving more fun for petrol heads like Clarkson anyway. He should want more public transit, cyclist infrastructure, etc. It would benefit him indirectly even as a petrol head.
What I find funniest though is when he says in that quote in the same breath "electric cars don't solve anything" and then "science will solve the problem". My brother in Christ, science made the electric cars!